Still Sings the Nightbird

Another Saturday

127 A Another Saturday Kabi! Kabi! Wake-up, Mami is calling you!” shouted Wam from the kitchen. Wam looked into the room where she had dressed quietly earlier so as not to wake Kabi up. She immediately knew that it was the wrong time to call poor Kabi. The happy baby had tugged at her breast as usual almost all night long. Here she was now sorting out homemade pads. It was, after all, another Saturday morning. Was life not a ritual? “Give her time,” Wam said to Wakabi who was preparing tea. Saturday was not a day of rest in Uberi. In Kaimosi, it was for many. Those in Seventh Day Adventists drank no alcohol there. Wa Ngai, Kabi thought, should have shifted there. But some things can only be internalized. And was it true that there was no alcohol in Kaimosi? A drinker like a river finds a way. Saturday. It was the hardest day of the week here. There were plenty of dirty clothes but they were the same clothes that needed to be washed again. Extra water had to be fetched so that one would not have to go to the river on Sunday. Saturday was also the day on which the land was recreated. A new custom had started. On Saturday, groups of women and men, young and old, woke up to a long laid plan of getting rid of all weeds on one family’s piece of land. They would all gather to attack the weeds that threatened to choke all the land. This was a singular intervention. They used their hoes and ruhiNJ or small machetes and songs on their lips; the hoes for the men and the ruhiNJ for the women. The soil, which they turned over and over in different ways looked neat and smelt fresh. Eyes felt at ease seeing the clear land. After the hard work, a feast of mNJkimo and uji was most welcome and in between the bites, many jokes. Song drove work. “ 128 Ndarƭire gƭthungNJthNJ Gƭtina inƭ kƭa irigNJ Machoya butubutu Nokƭo ngNJbutabuta Johnny ciakwa! Kabi would not have wanted to sing this song. She understood what she heard and was never sure of the context but it spread. She wondered if people really sang to or of Johnnies? She knew that Banana Hill was named so by the British Colonial soldiers. They named it when it was part of yet to be divided land because when they looked down all they could see were bananas. Kabi sang because of the rhythm not the meaning for the crowd loved the tune. I ate a bitter part, the song went, at the bottom of the banana, the leaves just made rustling sound, and that is why I clap my wings, Oh my Johnnies! She knew that the song rhymed well but she would never call on British soldiers even as a joke. Many women would not. Johnnies stayed and still served in Kenya as part of British protection. As for bananas what could she do? They would never stop growing or being of use. Sometimes, she thought, one bends for some time instead of standing in the way of a strong river current, so that it passes and the person can breathe. After the tilling of the land, the village would wait for the rains. After rain fell, they planted beans and maize. The leaves of both would fight their silent battle of pushing out through the soil to be kissed first by the dew then by sun rays. When they pushed up, the soil became little bumps rising and cracking in the middle. How clean was the young green funnel of a maize leaf sprouting from the red earth! The green beans were especially beautiful in their style of growing. When she saw a field full of newly sprouted bean leaves, Kabi imagined that they went through stages of growth together as an army would through training exercises. They knew 129 they had to make many women, children and men strong when they landed in their stomachs. All of them would at one time have a leaf already free in the air and the other still slightly twirled into the land elegantly turning itself up to greet the rising sun. They were like women throwing a winnowing tray up to catch clean grains with the dirt...